Some philosophers agree with biologists on this one.
Am a biologist, can confirm.
A biologist who ignores asexually reproducing organisms, clearly.
Humans have tried reproducing asexually. It’s called wanking. It doesn’t work.
I’m a philosopher. I can confirm the biologist seems right
Procreo, ergo sum
Pater tuus est?
Ita, fili mi.
42
Well, now I should take this meme down. You’ve given me a counterpoint so complete I have no retort. I will now go grab my towel.
If you suck on the end it’s lemon flavored.
That’s what she said
Universal Sereal Bus
Zark that, it’s actually about finding a place to eat
Where all the hoopy froods meet!
that’s not the meaning of life, that’s the answer to the ultimate question about life the universe and everything…
The meaning of life is when catholics do a song and dance number about how every sperm is sacred.
But what’s the question?
Hmm, that requires Deep Thought.
if you haven’t read that book yet, i won’t spoil it
Wait, where do I recognise her from, I’m sure I’ve seen her face before
Somewhere in your area is a doorway. Please walk through that, and do not return. Thank you.
asking for a friend I see
uWu
This meme was made better for me by provoking the thought that all the great philosophers were just aces
What, cannibalism?
We all eat each other in some ways
Except we have the foresight to know everything will end. Even if we were to produce 100 000 000 perfect replicas of our genes they would still hit the same wall— extinction. Further, whether we have free will or not (prolly not), we’re able to coopt the gene platforms to further non-procreative aims.
It’s a bit like saying the point of a TV show is to earn profit for the people who bankrolled it. Well, yes that’s why it’s here and literally the only thing that will keep it going, but you can do a lot more within those constraints than play out the material reality.
So the question remains.
Even if we were to produce 100 000 000 perfect replicas of our genes they would still hit the same wall— extinction.
Doesn’t matter, had sex.
What is the meaning of life?
To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
Personally I feel like it is a dumb question. Life gives you meaning. By that I mean life enables the creation of symbolic truths. And what enables life is a different question.
Funny enough, without life, your statement has no meaning.
with life is still has no meaning
I think almost everybody who isn’t a philosopher is with the biologists.
I feel like we would have fewer problems if this were true.
Objectively: It’s entropy, life is part of the process for dismantling the universe.
Subjectively: It’s whatever you like. Personally I find a lot of comfort in the objective view.
Women looking at this meme: so am I supposed to be a lesbian?
her eye game is absolutely on-point
women? on the internet? looking at memes?
Lemmy silver 🥈
Is it colloidal?
?
The silver
Sorry I don’t understand
(English isn’t my primary language :/)
Creepy. I just watched this scene seconds ago after not watching the film for years…
Yes I was scrolling while watching, I’m sorry.
Weird, I just watched this year’s after not watching the film for years…
Its crazy how unlikely things happen frequently with enough participants.
Yes I was scrolling while sitting on the toilet, I’m sorry.
Weird, I don’t even know what film this is from. And yet here I am, replying to this comment.
Yes, this is a blatant shitpost. I’m sorry.
In case you aren’t joking: Blade Runner
Here I thought it was some bad homophobia propaganda, with “replicant” being a diagetic slur for straight people
Old saying in is: In Internet men are men, women are men and children are FBI officers.
Edit: 4chan rules of the Internet:
Rule 29: On the internet men are men, women are also men, and kids are undercover FBI agents.
GIRL
guy in real life
Sounds pretty gay.
Yep. Sorry hetro women, the meme has spoken; you’ve got to be gay now.
Well, at least bi.
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Yes.
It’s not necessarily a POV…
Yup, we are now gay :3
Yes, you have to reproduced by impregnating a woman or you are an evolutionary failure.
Way ahead of you
Join us!
Congrats on one of the gayest usernames I’ve ever seen
Also best pillar
No you don’t understand. Women don’t matter.
Bust a nut, pass your genetics and perish. Thats it. What you do in between that is up to you.
No, social behavior has always been a party of biology. Even after you reproduce how you care for your young and your extended family has a huge impact on the species. Herd animals or anything that flocks can’t function solo. If all the adults just left after they reproduced the species wouldn’t survive. Reproduction is key for the individual, but it’s never that simple. The version you’re told in school is always a highly simplified version of the truth.
Honestly the entire idea that the only purpose of humanity is to make the next generation or support that process in some way just feels gross in a very eugenics adjacent way. If you start with that premise, it’s just too easy to conclude that anyone who isn’t working towards that end is disposable.
From a biological point of view everybody is disposable
I’m in the “there is no purpose,” camp. It seems like a bit of a mental disorder to me to (without any evidence) assume that oneself or one’s species isn’t just hanging around by random happenstance. Wouldn’t that simply be narcissism? People have long asked the question, “why are we here?” Yet there’s never been and never will be a definitive answer.
Evolution is just natural eugenics.
Yes, but also it’s more complicated than that. Most species die off before being grandparents, and certianly they don’t participate in the rearing of grandchildren. We specifically live long enough and have emotional connection to keep being part of a family structure past that point. It helps retain and pass on knowledge that proved valuable for us. Likewise, younger siblings are more likely to be homosexual, and it’s hypothesized this was to build redundancy into family structures. If both parents die off in a hunting accident, you have a gay aunt/uncle who can step in; much better than being an orphan.
Yes reproduction is the GOAL as far as evolution is concerened, but contributing does not require direct participation.
Is it though? Because evolution is only really concerned with a thing living long enough to reproduce. It’s not planned like eugenics would be.
That’s why there’s tons of examples of dumb as hell stuff in biology because as long as an organism is “good enough” to keep reproducing and spreading their genes that is fine and that species will continue to evolve.
Eugenics would be more like if evolution somehow could select only for specific traits and then made sure to only let things with those traits reproduce. Evolution is much messier than that.
Not just humanity. That is the purpose of all living things, insofar as we can be said to have a purpose at all.
No, it’s not purpose. It’s just a process that perpetuates itself.
It’s how you make the next generation, but if that generation doesn’t have a purpose, then neither does yours, nor the act of reproduction.
…well in the long view, that’s how we got here and eventually that’s all that matters: it’s a bit nihilistic but that’s the essence of nature in the cosmos…
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We did evolve grandmother’s. That was an evolutionary pressure response. Deep knowledge and long growth have lead us through doors of perception far beyond the reach of all life we have yet precieved.
Tangential nitpick—the phrase “evolutionary pressure response” evokes the idea that there is an intelligent or benevolent purpose behind the process. When a beneficial trait randomly occurs and gets passed on, that is a release from evolutionary pressure, not a response to it.
We did evolve grandmother’s.
Grandmother’s what? What’s implied by the “'s” after “grandmother”?
You probably haven’t been off reddit long, but breath easy friend, no one proofread’s around here.
Apple pie.
The entire purpose of life and evolution up to this point was to evolve grandmother’s apple pie.
How about I do something which will make life better for people who are actually alive already instead of increasing total human suffering by making new people.
That’s the philosophy group to the left
Having kids can be extremely fulfilling, doesn’t increase human suffering at all. Having kids subjectively improved my life and the lives of many people adjacent to me, e.g. the lives of my family members and friends and my kids’ friends.
I don’t understand how the Internet is so anti kids, it’s pretty baffling.
You say it’s improved your life and the lives of those adjacent to you, your family members, friends, and your kids’ friends. But you haven’t said its improved your kids life. I think that’s what the OP was talking about. A being who doesn’t exist doesn’t desire to exist so making new life isn’t doing them a favor and only exposes them to harm.
Don’t project your own depression onto others, and non-existent beings.
If you think existence “only exposes [living things] to harm” and nothing else, nothing even potentially good?
If you truly believe that, I’ve got no nice way to say this: You need therapy.
I mean I’m not depressed and I love living, so I wouldn’t be projecting depression on to others.
I agree that people can experience good things as well as harmful things, but it’s not a risk worth taking. Giving birth is gambling with human life. You never know if someones life experience is going to be overwhelmingly positive or negative, but if they are never born, that’s not even an issue to worry about.
I don’t understand how the Internet is so anti kids, it’s pretty baffling.
Because people who are chronically online are chronically online because they had shitty childhoods which gave them chronic depression. Thus they associate the creation of children with the creation of suffering.
Source: me
Virtually every sentient life experiences a non-zero amount of suffering. Progeny that doesn’t exist categorically doesn’t suffer; progeny that does exist is virtually certain to suffer to some degree. The hedonist argument that progeny may get to experience some joy falls apart because progeny that doesn’t exist categorically doesn’t experience any lack of joy (i.e. that would-be joy is not mourned by that which does not exist).
Ensuring the certainty of the sum total of suffering in another person’s life just for one’s own self-fulfillment is incredibly selfish. Procreation is a cycle of blithe selfishness that perpetuates universal suffering and is at best wrought by apathy for others’ suffering and at worst wrought by enthusiasm for others’ suffering.
I’m anti-kid because I didn’t consent to the sentience that I have experienced and I have the empathy to want others not to suffer.
Sure, life is imperfect, but is that really a reason to espouse something as radical as nonexistence? I find that the imperfection and thereby dualism of existence is part of what makes it beautiful; we get to experience both the good and the bad, pleasure and pain.
I guess in some sense what I understand you’re saying is that to you, being thrust into the pain inherent of becoming and being alive, is the consequence of a bad moral or ethical (selfish) action and therefore wrong even if the children are able to adapt, because there is always more potential suffering throughout the course of a life. I get that, I think most of us would love to be in situations where we could have no-suffering-guarantees for our children.
Maybe the point of friction is that it seems to me like you believe that there should be no suffering at all for it to be ethically permissible to have children (lest it be selfish) while many of us believe that the “base level” of suffering inherent to life (eg. death of parents, the setbacks of infancy, social interaction, etc.) is permissible, and it then falls on us as parents to make sure that there is no or as little additional or unnecessary suffering as possible by means of safe environment, education and tools to cope and overcome so that what could potentially be suffering doesn’t become so. When it comes to that I believe it to be more reasonable to discuss who ought and who oughtn’t be a parent than whether it’s ethical or not to have kids.
When it comes to that I believe it to be more reasonable to discuss who ought and who oughtn’t be a parent than whether it’s ethical or not to have kids.
Eugenics is not going to reduce suffering in the world.
I’m anti-kid because I didn’t consent to the sentience that I have experienced and I have the empathy to want others not to suffer.
Maybe you should find the empathy to see that your experience is not everyone’s experience, then?
Refer to the first sentence of my comment.
Non 0 amount of suffering is a meaningless statement.
Human suffering is caused in part by overpopulation (as is the suffering of all creatures - we are invasive, destructive and afflicted with a superiority complex) and in part by religious indoctrination, so while you procreate, as long as you don’t force offspring into a single and restrictive belief system, I suppose it’s okay, and all the best to you.
Come on, it’s worth it but it certainly brings a lot of suffering that wouldn’t exist otherwise. Telling my teenager that he needs to shower 5x, every day that he does sports, is suffering for both me and him.
If reincarnation were real, I’d hope that people who think the meaning of life entails procreation end up getting stuck as mayflies forever
TIL that we evolved opposable thumbs for feeding our loved ones
Hungry for thumbs
